1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management technology for document data output from an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an office, copy machines are widely used as an image forming apparatus for printing out document data obtained by reading a document. These days, among such apparatuses, a growing number of image forming apparatuses have a facsimile function, a printer function, a function of transmitting a read image as data to a terminal, and a function of reading and outputting image data saved in a portable recording medium. Further, it has become popular in recent years to output business documents using an image forming apparatus not only in an office but also in public places such as convenience stores. Also, it has become popular to store business documents in a portable recording medium, connect to an image forming apparatus present in a public place, and output an image.
Recently, confidential information leakage in has become a serious problem in offices. To prevent leakage of confidential information in an office, many software programs having a function of monitoring printout, mail sending/reception, file copying, and the like are commercially available. As a method of preventing leakage of confidential information in the form of a paper medium, there is proposed a technique of saving image data of a document and data (date and time of copying, user, location, and the like) about an output job of the image in association with each other to enable later tracking, as disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3821293.
However, storage devices which manage data regarding an output job are not always connected via a network to an image forming apparatus present in a public place. If an image forming apparatus not connected to a storage device via a network outputs data, it cannot transmit data regarding the output job to an external server, and thus fails in data management of that output job against leakage of confidential information.
It is also possible to store data regarding an output job in a portable recording medium and recover the information in an office. However, when document data is saved as data regarding an output job, the data size may become large, and the data may not be storable in a portable recording medium. Japanese Patent No. 3821293 proposes a method of preventing output itself when an area for storing information regarding an output job cannot be ensured in the storage area. However, output failure may decrease business efficiency and hinder the business itself.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above situation, and has as its object to enable data management of an output job even in an image forming apparatus not connected to a network.